cooling leak
 

hey guys,
last night i was sitting in taco bell's drive thru and my engine overheated so i pulled it over and shut it off and called AAA. they towed it home and today i pulled the underpanel off and it looks like the bottom of the expansion tank is leaking. in january this happened to me and the BMW shop down the road told me to add more coolant in and drive it down there. being that this is my first BMW i didn't really know off the emergency of the cooling system errors. however, i got there and they told me i had warped my head and that it was going to be $2000 to fix. being that my daily driver was hit by a tree last fall i had to get it fixed. (keep in mind i bought this car to do the S52 swap and now having to dump all this money in to the M44 engine) : /

now after all that history it did this, any ideas on what to do or what i need to look for when fixing this? thanks,
matt

p.s. currently my daily driver still since work has been cutting my hours.

Are you sure about the head, if you shut it right down that shouldn't have done it. I drove mine 12mi in the red and the head is still straight, the only problem was a pinhole leak which I fixed with bars-leak.

mate, stop paniking.

1st . they need to replace the radiator, and then see if anything else is leaking

normaly water pump or thermostat faliure.

On the m4x there is a water outlet on the rear of the block which gives out, check also there for leakage,

Once u get that far, make them do a "sniffer" test for Co particles in the coolant. if there is traces of exaust gases in the water then there´s a breach somewhere.

But it could of course be just the headgasket thts failed , and not necesarily be a warped top :?

Get another independant to look at it :)

thanks fo rthe replies,
i don't think that the head is warped this time but there is a leak at the bottom of the block. i will probably buy the cooling system overhaul kit off bavauto and install it myself.

it's just irretating that i can't get my head above water to get the swap done.

i will take your advise mallard for the testing.